


Aftermath

by writing_as_tracey



Series: This Isn't Freedom - It's Bughead Prompts [3]
Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Marvel's Iron Man, CHIC is JARVIS, F/M, Gen, Iron Man 3, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Tony Stark and Pepper Potts - Freeform, Tumblr Prompt, mechanic!betty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-05
Updated: 2017-07-05
Packaged: 2018-11-28 06:35:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 795
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11412288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writing_as_tracey/pseuds/writing_as_tracey
Summary: Tumblr Prompt:Mechanic!Betty = Tony Stark, Jughead = Pepper Potts





	Aftermath

**_Aftermath_ **

* * *

Betty wasn’t in bed when Jughead woke up. Her side of the bed was cold, indicating that she hadn’t been in bed for some time. He turned on his side; he saw the clock’s glowing numbers in the dark room and swore.

He sat up, reaching for his discarded pajama bottoms and quickly hiked them on, padding out from the comfortable bedroom they shared and began to make his way quickly to the garage, where Betty liked to work. As soon as he was outside the door to the garage, he heard the resonating beats of music that she had turned up loud.

She was working, again. He sighed.

He pushed open the door and braced himself against the doorframe, his arms crossed as he watched his girlfriend flit back and forth across her immaculate workspace.

Betty didn’t notice him – she was intensely focused on a new part of her armour, a welder’s helmet covering her eyes and face as the white-blue flame sparked and smouldered against the deep red of metal for her Iron Woman suit.

Finally, she shut off the blowtorch, lifting the mask from her face and Jughead winced. Her eyes were hollowed, slightly sunken from too many nights with too little sleep, and her hair, while back in her trademark ponytail, was hanging limp down the back of her neck.

 _How did I miss this?_  He wondered. Was he so caught up in running Cooper Mechanics that he lost track and sight of his girlfriend’s mental state?

Betty wiped off her heavy gloves and began poking and prodding at the metal armour. She then sighed and sat heavily in her swivel stool, pushing against the floor to her mobile tool rack, sorting through a few wrenches and pliers until she found was she was looking for.

Jughead saw the red on her hands and his heart dropped.

“Betts,” he said softly, but loud enough to be heard over the music.

Betty startled, swore loudly, and the wrench fell from her hands with a loud clatter. She turned on the stool and her eyes widened at the sight of him. “CHIC, music off, please.”

“Of course, Betty,” the automated intelligence system she had created back when they were in high school, **C** ompletely **H** ypothetical **I** ntelligence **C** haracter (which ended up actually working), said politely.

“Betty,” said Jughead, standing and walking into the room. “What are you doing here? It’s two am. Come back to bed.”

Betty bit her lip and turned slightly away from Jughead, looking down at her suit. “I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because… because I need to work on this,” she said, firmly, turning back to her suit and picking the wrench up off the floor.

“I thought that the Mark V was destroyed after…” he trailed off, and cursed himself when he saw her shoulders tense. He shouldn’t have brought it up.

She brought it up, though. “Nothing’s been the same since Riverdale.”

Jughead pursed his lips and looked around the garage, realizing that the part she was working on was just one of much iteration, and the many different versions of her Iron Woman suit were scattered around in various stages of completion.

“No one is expecting you to be a hero, Betts,” he said, coming to stand near her. “You don’t need to do this.”

She looked up at him with wide green eyes. “Yes, Juggie, I do.”

She looked back down and stared at her armour piece. “You experience things and then they’re over, and you still can’t explain them. Gods, aliens, other dimensions. I’m just a woman in a can!”

Her lips trembled and she carefully put her wrench down on the tabletop. “The only reason I haven’t cracked up is probably because you moved in. Which is great. I love you. I’m lucky. But Jug, I can’t sleep. You go to bed, I come down here. I do what I know. I tinker. I… Threat is imminent. And I have to protect the one thing that I can’t live without.”

She looked back up at him and he inhaled quickly at the raw desperation in her eyes. “That’s you.”

His eyes softened and he reached out for her, drawing her up and into his arms, carefully taking note at the red of her palms from her nails biting into the flesh. “Betts… God, I love you.”

“I love you, too, Juggie,” she muttered into his neck, and he wrapped his arms tighter against her small frame.

“You and mean? We’re a team. Together,” he said into her hair. “And we’re going to figure this saving the world thing together, too.” He tilted her chin back and up so her eyes caught his. “Okay?”

She gave him a tiny smile. “Okay.”

* * *

FIN

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [stillscape](http://archiveofourown.org/users/stillscape/pseuds/stillscape) for this prompt over on Tumblr!! ❤️


End file.
